Train to Nowhere
One Woman's World War II, Ambulance Driver, Reporter, Liberator
by Anita Leslie
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Pub Date Aug 24 2017 | Archive Date Jan 31 2018
Bloomsbury USA | Bloomsbury Caravel
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Description
A World War II memoir following the adventures of a female ambulance driver in WWII as she serves across four fronts witnesses the best and worst of humanity, and navigates the barriers imposed by sexism in the British Army.
Train to Nowhere is a war memoir seen through the sardonic eyes of Anita Leslie, a funny and vivacious young woman who reports on her experiences with a dry humor, finding the absurd alongside the tragic.
Daughter of a Baronet and first cousin once removed of Winston Churchill, she joined the Mechanized Transport Corps as a fully trained mechanic and ambulance driver during WWII, serving in Libya, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France, and Germany. Ahead of her time, Anita bemoans ‘first-rate women subordinate to second-rate men,’ and, as the English army forbade women from serving at the front, joined the Free French Forces in order to do what she felt was her duty.
Writing letters in Hitler’s recently vacated office and marching in the Victory parade contrast with observations of seeing friends murdered and a mother avenging her son by coldly shooting a prisoner of war. Unflinching and unsentimental, Train to Nowhere is a memoir of Anita’s war, one that, long after it was written, remains poignant and relevant.
With a new introduction by Penny Perrick.
Anita Leslie (1914–1985), daughter of Shane Leslie (Sir John Randolph Leslie, 3rd Baronet) and first cousin once removed of Sir Winston Churchill, was a writer of memoir and biography. She joined the Mechanised Transport Corps as a fully trained mechanic and ambulance driver during WWII, serving in Libya, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France and Germany. She wrote letters home from Hitler's office in the Reich Chancellery and took part in the Victory parade in Berlin. In the latter part of the war she drove an ambulance for the Free French Forces, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945 by General Charles de Gaulle.
Leslie later married Commander Bill King and had two children. She published seventeen books, the last in 1985 – the year she died.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9781448216673 |
| PRICE | $15.00 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
R L, Reviewer
5 stars
Synopsis: Anita Leslie was a "society girl" who joined the Mechanized Transport Corps as a driver and mechanic during WWII. As part of the MTC, she was stationed in Libya, Syria, and Palestine. When the MTC was disbanded, Leslie decided not to join the British version of ambulance drivers, because the women didn't work on the front. Instead, she joined the Free French Forces, and saw action in Italy, France, and Germany.
What I liked: this seemed to be a very honest and surprisingly impartial account of Leslie's time during the war. There wasn't any hatred of the Germans, and Leslie didn't try to make herself look like the hero of her story, although she was at the Front, and drove the sick and wounded in very extreme circumstances, so she could definitely be considered heroic. Leslie had friends and people she was friendly with killed, accidentally got ahead of the tanks advancing several times, and had to live in conditions that, although she became inured to them, were not what she was used to growing up.
I enjoyed seeing the respect that Leslie had for a lot of the people that she met, no matter their race or origin, and her recounts of things that had obviously hurt when they happened were treated with a matter of fact tone that made everything that much more real. I also enjoyed the fact that she felt that the French men were much more realistic about gender equality than the British at that time, since British women were not allowed to serve on the Front, and French women had done so in WWI as well.
This told the story of something that I had never read about in history books, and I feel that it is a story that needs to be heard.
*I received a copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*
